Posted on 06/07/2002 12:56:37 PM PDT by PeaceBeWithYou
Houston will be lowering speed limits in an eight-county area to 55 mph in May 2002. Dallas area drivers have already had to endure this. Texas is the only state in the country implementing this nonsense. The EPA has forced it on us. It is the contention of the NMA that these speed limits are illegal. The state is superceding the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) mandates because of EPA blackmail. The EPA contends that car emissions will be "substantially reduced" if people would drive slower. They manufacture these benefits using a computer model that the Government Accounting Office said had 14 major limitations in addressing emissions. This type of modeling is used to develop plans for construction bans, lawnmower bans, rationing of when you may drive, emissions testing, reformulated gas, and environmental speed limits.
If you want to fight this, you have to do it right now! The reality is cars classified as TLEV(Transitional Low Emission Vehicles) and higher, emit the same amount of NOx at 55 mph as 70 mph. It is .000. Most cars built since 1996 are classified as TLEVS or higher. The EPA's models (and benefits) are based on cars that are not even built anymore!!!!! Every day that goes by, any theoretical benefit diminishes as newer, cleaner cars enter the vehicle fleet. This is the dirty little secret of the EPA. To ensure their own survival, they require a number of programs that they claim have a benefit. Once you cave into their demands, any improvement that occurs is attributed to their programs. Benefits that would have occurred anyway (i.e. cleaner cars being purchased) are ignored as unimportant. The response is always, "We have to do something" regardless of the benefit.
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Read Luke Ball's Better ways to solve our problem than slowing down editorial published February 24, 2002 in the Houston Chronicle.
Air Quality and Mobility, The Next Attack
Other Speed Limit Information
Speed Limits - Key Summary
National Motorists Association's national site has a lot of detailed information on speed limits.
It's way past time for some common sense as opposed to Ozone Man's nonesense for the last 22 years.
Let's Roll!
Better ways to solve our problem than slowing down
AIR QUALITY FACTS
The EPA promised a 30% reduction in car emissions if we used Reformulated Gas.
The EPA promised a 15% reduction in car emissions if we started annual emission testing.
The EPA promised a significant reduction in evaporative emissions if we implemented Vapor recovery systems.
The EPA even threatened us with the loss of our highway funds if we didn't comply.
We spent more than the highway funds we were trying to save and what happened?
NONE OF THIS WORKED!
We are still trying to match the ozone levels that were in effect in 1994, the last year before these EPA mandates. Source-TNRCC Monitoring Operations Division
DID YOU KNOW?
Vehicle inspections do little to reduce pollution. Source-University of Minnesota
A cost/benefit analysis of I/M (inspection & maintenance) programs reveal that it costs $100 for every $1 of health benefit. Source-Fraser Institute
Cars up to seven years old pass the current I/M test more than 99% of the time. Source-Texas Department of Public Safety.
MTBE, the oxygenate in Reformulated Gasoline, is responsible for contaminating tens of thousands of water wells and rendered them unusable. Source-Sixty Minutes
NOx (oxides of nitrogen) emissions go up with the increase of oxygenates in gasoline. Source-Auto/Oil Air Quality
Improvement Research Program.
"The emissions of oxides of nitrogen from baseline vehicles when using reformulated gasoline shall be no greater than the level of such emissions from such vehicles when using baseline gasoline." Section 219 para. K2A of the Clean Air Act.
If you live in the worst location for air quality in Houston, the air meets the federal standard more than 99.5% of the time. Source-TNRCC Monitoring Division
The fact is we do not have an air quality crisis in Houston. The air is about 70% cleaner than it was 30 years ago. We can certainly do better, but only if the EPA would stop mandating useless, expensive programs. Do you think that lowering the speed limit to 55mph, banning construction work and yard work in the morning, and more clean cars waiting in line to get their car tested on a dynamometer will have any benefit at all? It won't. Don't take my word for it. Educate yourself. Look up the sources cited above.
All you have to lose is your money, your time, and some more of your freedoms.
If this doesn't tick you off, you are dead.
Now, Texas is a mighty big state and and it takes FOREVER to get across it at 55 mph. Fifty-five is a poor option when crossing the state out of the urban areas. It takes too long to get anywhere.
However, au contraire to the statement in one of the links listed here that the death toll has gone down, speed-related accidents have increased. "Highway death rates have increased in Alabama, California, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Texas, where traffic deaths jumped 17 percent or an average of 40 more per month since the state began raising highway speed limits last Dec. 8. If the trend continues, 3,600 will be killed in auto accidents this year in Texas, making the death toll the highest since 1985." Law Enforcement News Dec. 15, 1996. © 1996, LEN Inc.
Further, 37% of all fatalities involve failure of a driver to control a car due to excessive speed. The percentage is higher among young men. It follows that it could be doing 50 in a 35 as readily as it could be 90 in a 70.
An especially nice thing to note, is that a state agency spent a quarter of a million in Texas tax dollars to study why the death rates in Texas went up after the increase to 70. Duh!
Why do we need any law when "common sense" will do? Maybe sense is not so common?
Am I understanding this? That was before any of the EPA-mandated stuff went into effect, right? Do we have any studies that model what the air would have been like without the implementation of those regs?
The TNCRR tells us that there maybe a maximum reduction of 2% with the 55 MPH speed limit. Maybe as little as 0.6%. We are told that Houston needs every reduction in NOX possible. But the government does nothing to synchronize the traffic lights, so cars sit and idle needlessly. Nothing is done to clear automobile accidents faster, so cars sit in a traffic jam longer. (Remember a last year when a construction crew hit a gas line in the Galleria area and the 610 loop was closed all day and part of the night? Did the police assist with traffic control? No the police just allowed the traffic to attempt to flow through a few traffic lights, which operated on their same time cycle.) Does the government schedule roadwork at night to reduce traffic congestion, thus reducing NOX? Does the government require big, over sized loads to travel in the Houston area late at night thereby reducing traffic congestion, thus reducing NOX?
The TNRCC tells us that every amount of reduction in NOX is necessary, this means we need the emission testing and lower speed level. Then the TNRCC tell us that they are considering changing the level of reduction required from industrial NOX sources from 90% to 80%.
Want a scam, and we pay for it.
Oh bye the way a reduction in speed from 70 MPH to 55 MPH mean about 20% more time driving.
So that we may all share the pain equally, I have told my gardener to mow my grass 20% slower.
Will try again tomorrow.
BTW: You forgot the perhaps the biggest polluter of all-- jet airplanes-- I've never heard anyone propose emission testing for them. Did you notice how clean the skys were last October-November?
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